CHAPTER 13- A Citizen's Manual for Developing Integrated Aquatic Vegetation Management Plans

Putting All The Pieces Together

The final task is to take all the information and formulate a long-term action program (plan) for aquatic plant management. This Plan provides the community with guidance and direction for aquatic plant management. The decision to proceed with aquatic plant control in your water body is just the beginning. Follow-through is critical. Aquatic plant control is an ongoing concern that requires long-term commitment. This is particularly true of water bodies with exotic plants or with nuisance plant growth that has developed over many years. In these situations, achieving management goals could take many years. The Plan should be flexible and evolving. It should provide for regular checking of how well the actions are working and allow for modification as conditions change.

Components Of The Action Plan

While the integrated treatment scenario forms the heart of the Plan, there are other activities that are also essential components of the management program. These include program budgeting, evaluating program effectiveness, organizing public outreach and exotic weed prevention programs, developing funding strategies, and identifying short-term and long-term actions. These components are all linked together by the critical element of time. Appropriate start-up time and duration of each of these activities can vary widely. For these reasons, it is important to divide the action plan into short-term and long-term program elements.

1.   Review and recheck the recommended integrated treatment scenario.

• Costs
• Permit requirements
• Human safety/health and environmental impacts
• Mitigation, if needed
• Acceptability to water body property owners, users and other interested parties

2.   Compute costs and a budget to implement the overall program.

3.   Determine monitoring and evaluation strategies to evaluate the program's success.

The old adage "an ounce of prevention saves a pound of cure" really holds true when it comes to exotic weed invaders. The Plan should contain an exotic (non-native) weed prevention component to limit introduction of non-native weeds to the water body and to provide a means of quick response if exotic weeds are sighted. Exotic weed invaders such as Eurasian watermilfoil, Brazilian elodea and hydrilla spread primarily by fragmentation (breaking off of stem pieces) and transport on boating equipment. Efforts to halt the spread through educational means, by a citizen watch for these invaders in the water body, and by visual inspection of boats entering and leaving the water body are recommended.

6.    Develop funding strategies.

• Voluntary donations for aquatic plant control work
• Formation of a lake or property owner association with the ability to collect revenue
• Establishment of a lake management district (LMD) or other taxing district
• Grants or loans from public agencies or other outside sources (e.g., Ecology's Aquatic Weeds Management Grant Program).

• Identify an action plan based on optimal short and long-term funding sources to accomplish the Plan. Incorporate into points 7 and 8.

7.  Construct a short-term action plan.

Some elements of the Plan can be initiated immediately. Control methods like hand digging are usually small scale and have no permit requirements, so they can be implemented as soon as plants begin to show growth in early spring. Since mechanical harvesting is usually performed later in the season when plant growth is at its peak, preparing appropriate permit applications in the winter allows sufficient time to process permits prior to summer treatment. Volunteer efforts can be used for some activities. Many home or property owner watershed controls can be implemented right away. Public outreach programs on scheduled management activities can be started immediately with little or no cost.

Other elements of the Plan may require more time for completion or to procure funding or to handle complex permit issues. Certain techniques require repeat treatments over several years for optimal effectiveness (e.g., diver dredging, rotovation). The time-frame for processing permits may be extended if multiple permits are required or several agencies are involved in the review process. It may take time to advertise for specialized contract services such as diver dredging.

The planning process results in a written Plan that summarizes all the information that you have gathered. The written document provides the basis for annual review of short-term and long-term elements of the Plan It is recommended that a three ring binder with tabs for each planning step be used to organize your planning document. In this way, any new information, monitoring results and necessary changes in the program can be easily documented for future use. Your plan should have the following written components:

• Problem statement
• Management goals
• A list of water body and watershed characteristics from previous studies or current sampling work
• A map showing beneficial and recreational use areas of the water body
• A map showing types and locations of aquatic plants
• A written characterization of aquatic plants
• A discussion of aquatic plant controls, examining pros and cons of use in the water body (results can be presented in a matrix format)
• A control intensity map showing proposed control areas in water body
• Description of public involvement program, including specific examples.
• A list of action strategies, both short- and long-term, and time frames
• A description of the monitoring and evaluation process to be used.

A written plan containing these elements will serve you well in overall management of aquatic plants, as well as in meeting requirements of certain public funding sources. For example, an application for Aquatic Weeds Management Fund grant monies administered by Ecology requires written presentation of planning information using the format described in this manual (see Appendix E).

The Road Well Traveled

Congratulations on completing your Plan! Throughout the planning process, you have learned about the workings of the water body and its watershed, as well as aquatic plant management in Washington State and its applicability to your water body. You have learned how to organize and work together, and most of all, how to compromise. Now you can begin the process of initiating the aquatic plant management program.

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